B.C.’s overdose crisis has accelerated public debates around an end to the war on drugs. With the province suffering more than 1,400 fatal overdoses each year, policymakers are increasingly open to initiatives that were once dismissed as radical.

Last week (February 21), for example, the B.C. Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU)—a research organization with close ties to government—published a report suggesting that Vancouver establish “heroin compassion clubs,” where people addicted to opioids could access pharmaceutical heroin that’s regulated and guaranteed free of dangerous contaminates like fentanyl…